Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Click opera - She comes in colours: "In just nine months, Pantone has completely changed its meaning in Japan. Once a fistful of numbered swatch cards that pernickety designers would menace printers with, it's now become a trendy consumer buzzword in Japan, and, some might say, a byword for the newly-acceptable face of colour in a nation which dips in and out of chromophobia."

The advantages of them are that they have a highly compressed structure, making them fast to read and their structure makes it possible for the system to combine multiple indexes together for fast access to the underlying table."

Monday, June 25, 2007

Disgraceland, PRC: "Once upon a time in a land called Xi Pu, just west of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in the People's Republic of China, there was a tourist theme park... The World Landscape Park. As a business venture it failed, and today the park lies abandoned and decaying. Personally, I think it's a lot more interesting this way than it could ever possibly have been when it was open."

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Returning Rows Through a Table Function in Oracle: "In Oracle9i, we are now able to call a table function within the FROM clause of a SQL statement and have it return a result set that mimics what we would normally expect from a traditional SQL SELECT statement."

Friday, June 22, 2007

Weight Training: "Better performances can be the product of a number of factors. This product is primarily the outcome of efficient technique, the progression of speed and the maturing competitive attitude on a sound basis of general endurance, all round strength and general mobility. The development of all round strength is best achieved via circuit training and then progressing this through weight training."

Why Every Man Should Lift Weights � Self Improvement Blog - BrianKim.net: "When you start lifting weights and begin to see all the positive benefits, there’s no going back. The benefits will drive you to keep on doing it, which continues the cycle, which then inevitably installs a great habit. You’ll feel more happy, energetic, focused, tough, accomplished and you won’t want to let go of the cause. "

Weight training: Are you using good technique? - MayoClinic.com: "You don't have to be a bodybuilder or professional athlete to reap the benefits of a weight training program. Weight training — a form of strength training — can improve your strength, increase your muscle tone, help you lose fat and gain muscle mass, and improve your bone density. But if done incorrectly, weight training won't give you these benefits and can lead to injury."

The $72 PC - Popular Science: "Luis BrunoThe Cereal PCSporting a metal ductwork shell, a Wi-Fi card and a touchscreen, this morning companion will automatically serve up the day’s weather and news headlines for breakfast reading.

With antiquated components flooding the surplus-parts market and free operating systems only a click away, building a fully functional computer has never been such a bargain. No, the $72 PC won’t replace your new dual-core, Vista-shredding laptop. But with its compact size and solid-state components (no hard drive or CD drive), it’s perfect for building into custom enclosures and for specific tasks like Web surfing or playing games. The computer boots from a USB flash drive running an operating system called Damn Small Linux that can handle just about any job. Got any grand ideas for a sub-C-note PC? Send them to us at h20@time4.com."

Video Games - China - Money - Online Games - New York Times: "It was an hour before midnight, three hours into the night shift with nine more to go. At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him. The screen showed a lightly wooded mountain terrain, studded with castle ruins and grazing deer, in which warrior monks milled about. Li, or rather his staff-wielding wizard character, had been slaying the enemy monks since 8 p.m., mouse-clicking on one corpse after another, each time gathering a few dozen virtual coins — and maybe a magic weapon or two — into an increasingly laden backpack."

SVS Animation 3433 - Rise of the Three Gorges Dam: "Some call it the eighth wonder of world; others say it's the next Great Wall of China. Upon completion in 2009, the Three Gorges Dam will be the world's largest hydroelectric power generator. One of the few man-made structures so enormous that it's actually visible to the naked eye from space, NASA's Landsat satellite has had a closer look, providing detailed, vivid views of the dam since its inception in 1994."

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Cooking For Engineers - Recipe File: Ratatouille: "With Ratatouille (a new animated movie from Pixar) coming out in a couple weeks, I thought it would be fitting for me to present a recipe for Ratatouille (a dish from Provence). This is a wonderfully flavorful vegetable dish that can be served as either a side or as a main entree.

There are a variety of recipes for Ratatouille and the ingredients often change from cook to cook, but most contain eggplant (aubergine), garlic, onions, zucchini (Italian squash or marrows), and bell peppers. Usually the recipe is seasoned with Herbes de Provence, but (as in this recipe) it can be as simple as parsley and basil. Often the individual vegetable components are cooked separately in olive oil, but I like this recipe that cooks the vegetables together. "

Test your musical skills in 6 minutes!: "While working at the music and neuroimaging lab at Beth Israel/Harvard Medical School in Boston, I developed a quick online way to screen for the tonedeafness. It actually turned out to be a pretty good test to check for overall pitch perception ability. The test is purposefully made very hard, so excellent musicians rarely score above 80% correct. Give it a try!"

blog.pmarca.com: "From an interview in Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, in 2005:

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem."

Productivity porn (or, for those really in the know, 'productivity pr0n') consists of techniques, tactics, and tricks for maximizing personal productivity -- or, as they say, 'getting things done'.

Having enjoyed such fine purveyors of prodporn as Merlin Mann, Danny O'Brien, Gina Trapani, David Allen, and Tim Ferriss, I'd like to return the favor with the following: the Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity."

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Untitled Document: "How to Tie a PareauA pareau is a traditional Polynesian garment that can be worn as several dress styles, a wrap, or as a skirt. It is one dress, in one size that gives you many unique ways to wear it. They're the perfect casual wear or cover-up, anywhere... just tie it and GO!"

RaidenX.net - RAIDENX: "Use your ARROW KEYS to navigate through menu. In game navigate your ship, using ARROW KEYS, over the enemy base destroying everything as you proceed further. Use 'Z' KEY to shoot and 'X' key to throw bomb. Collect the weapon upgrades to strengthen your armor before you fight the bosses. Have Fun! Bookmark Raiden X Now"

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Innovation | Lessons from Apple | Economist.com:"The first is that innovation can come from without as well as within. [...] This approach, known as “network innovation”[...]Second, Apple illustrates the importance of designing new products around the needs of the user, not the demands of the technology.[...]a third lesson from Apple is that smart companies should sometimes ignore what the market says it wants today.[...]The fourth lesson from Apple is to “fail wisely”.[...]None of these things, of course, guarantees success: you can buy in clever ideas, pursue simplicity, ignore focus groups and fail wisely—and still go bust."

A better soda can stove - YGingras.net: "When the coolness of hi-tech settles down, backpackers agree that it pays to keep it simple. The stove that packs the most bang per gram, that will never fail, is so simple that no one wants to sell it. It's the soda can stove."

Monday, June 04, 2007

Neatorama � Blog Archive � The Strangest Disaster of the 20th Century.: "The disaster at Lake Nyos was only the second such incident in the recorded history—the 1984 incident at Lake Monoun was the first. To date, scientists believe that only three lakes in the entire world, Nyos, Monoun, and a third lake called Lake Kivu on the border of Congo and Rwanda, accumulate deadly amounts of dissolved CO2 at great depths."